


Hold Me Until I Know What To Feel

by MaeveElemora



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Estranged Parents, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, and the conflicted emotions that comes with that, so be careful, specifically an estranged abusive parent, this is a comfort fic abt losing a parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 16:54:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17901926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveElemora/pseuds/MaeveElemora
Summary: She gives him a half smile of her own in return, another ghost of a laugh leaving her nose. She moves to untangle herself from his lap and her hand bumps into the still unopened bottle of whiskey at her side. The sound it makes as it tilts back and forth until it settles is unordinarily deafening, though Cullen knows that's all to do with the emotional connection it carries rather than any real volume.I hear the Ostwick Vicount's dear wife found a bottle at 15 and never put it back down.Sucha shame, really, if the Lady Inquisitor's beauty is anything to go by. You know what drink drains of a woman's beauty.This is a grief fic. You've been warned.





	Hold Me Until I Know What To Feel

**Author's Note:**

> I _very _recently lost my estranged mother to 30 years of hard alcoholism. The last conversation we had was me taking my pain out on her a few years ago through text of all things. While a lot of that anger was justified on my part, it still isn't sitting right. I use my writing to work through my emotions and Maeve is basically my self insert, emotional therapy character so she was the obvious choice for the focus of this fic.__
> 
>  
> 
> _  
> _I can promise you there will be no guilt tripping in this fic, no insisting that Mae should have done differently or that her feelings of guilt are invalidated. This fic will have poor punctuation, however, because I'm rusty and grieving and don't have it in me to proofread. Also my 'd' key is having trouble. Fuckin bane of my existence.__  
> 

By the time the family messenger had tracked down a way to contact Skyhold, it was already hours too late for any chance of a goodbye. Even if that hadn’t been the case, even if Leliana’s agents had managed to get one of the Tevinter messaging crystals to the healers residence in time, Lady Trevelyan had already succumbed to a sick unconsciousness. It would have been no more closure than speaking to a funeral pyre.

Mae hadn’t spoken to her mother in years, the last correspondence they’d had being a teenage Mae writing an angry letter, blaming her mother and her stepfather for all that was wrong with her. She’d been going through withdrawal, had just lost her first apprentice to a self chosen tranquility brand. She’d been hurting, drowning, and while her mother had been responsible for a great many of her childhood issues, thinking of that letter today turned Mae’s insides into knots.

“She died thinking I hated her,” had been her first semi coherent sobs, muffled against Leliana’s chest, upon being given the news. It hit hard, harder than she’d ever expected it to, and it hit fast.

She’d always imagined that one day, when she was finally stable and the world wasn’t falling apart, she’d reach out. She wasn’t holding her breath for a resolution, more just a chance to ask questions. Try to figure out why her mother made the choices she did. Why she didn’t seem to care what hurt her marriage and her actions caused her eldest daughter. Now the opportunity for that conversation, and any chance of closure, was gone.

Her mother... was gone.

She spends the day locked in her office, shifting between almost crying and trying to figure out if/what she’s truly upset about. It’s not long before she gets angry with her own attempts at distracting herself with work. This isn’t something she wants to ignore. She wants it front and center and she wants to cry dammit. She wants to work through it so it doesn’t come back to bite her in the ass later, but, Maker damn her, she can’t figure out _what_ she’s feeling.

 

\--

 

When Cullen finally comes to her quarters hours after the news is delivered, she’s sitting on what she refers to as her “private balcony”, the one on the side the rest of the fortress can’t see. She’s slumped against the wall, legs stretched out in front of her, an unopened bottle at her hip. Her ever faithful mabari, Emma, raises her head from Mae’s lap as Cullen ascends the stairs. When he gets closer he can see the goosebumps on her flesh and the heavy red swelling around her eyes, though if that’s from tears or the sickness she brought back from her last trip out he can’t yet tell.

“I’m still in danger of getting you sick, love.” Her voice is heavy and scratchier than it had been the day before when she’d shown signs of being on the mend. So the redness was definitely tears, then.

“I’ll take my chances,” Cullen says as he steps out onto the balcony. It’s nearly freezing, he realizes with a twinge of worry and concern, meaning she hadn’t bothered with wards. He automatically reaches for her hands to start warming them but stops himself. He’s not sure how welcome his touch is given the circumstances. Leliana had been clear that Mae wanted to be left alone, and he was still waiting for her acceptance or dismissal of his presence.

Her eyes sluggishly move up to his face as he stands there, feeling unsure and very much useless. “You look worried.”

“You look freezing.”

“I like the cold,” she counters with a halfhearted shrug.

"I'm not sure your limbs agree."

A beat of silence passes before she lets out a quiet sigh and shuffles forward, leaving enough space between her and the wall to indicate she wants to lean against him. Cullen makes quick work of removing his mantle and chest piece, leaning down to wrap the former around her shoulders before taking a seat at her back. It's so natural it's heartbreaking, the way she leans back against him and tugs his arms around her middle.

"Bit of a daft point to make after already sitting down," he murmurs against the top of her head, "but if you need time and space I understand." She shakes her head ever so slightly, not even enough movement for her hair to tickle his nose. He's never seen her so... still before. No, that's the wrong word. Empty. Hollow. That sums it better, he thinks mournfully.

They sit in comforting silence after that, Cullen worrying for her health the longer they sit there, but unable to bring himself to talk her inside. It's almost startling when she speaks again.

"She would have found so many meaningless things to pick at you about." She moves her hands to lace their fingers together and raise them up under her chin. "Every choice she made was always in attempt to live vicariously through me. If I hadn't been a mage, if we hadn't been separated, and I'd met you, she would have had a thousand catty comments. You could have been Emperor of Orlais and she would have asked why I wasn't waiting for an Emperor of Thedas to be crowned."

"High demands to make of a child."

"Mmm. She crawled her way out of the life of a miner's orphan and into the lap of a noble. She always expected me to do even better, given the start I had. Every effort I made was triple checked and second guessed." She pulls her legs up to her chest and twists in his lap, laying her side against his chest. "Do you remember that day you told me how young you were when you left for the Order?"

"I do. You looked horrified."

"I absolutely was. My mother never wanted a child, she wanted a grown woman to play best friends with. She wanted me prim, polished, and _adult_ since I was able to take my first steps." Mae lets out a decidedly undignified sniffle, almost sounding spiteful of her upbringing in its nature, and her voice drops to a whisper. "I resented her for it all my life, among other things."

Cullen is _very _familiar__ with those _ __other things___ and it still makes his jaw clench in anger whenever he thinks of it. How a mother could sit back as her husband abuses her own daughter is beyond him. He has his own estrangement issues to haunt him, but none of them come close to the horrors she faced in that house. He pulls Mae closer to his chest and tries in vain to rub warmth into her arms. "Tell me what you need, my love. Tell me what you want." She chokes on a sob and it absolutely shatters his heart.

"I wish I knew. I can't even figure out what I'm feeling. I feel guilt over that last letter, I feel regret over not being able ask her why things happened the way they did. Mostly I feel like I should be hurt or grieving, but I'm _not_ and it makes the guilt worse."

"You don't ever have to feel guilty about expressing your anger. She made mistakes, you were owed so much more from her and she failed you. You were in the right when you sent that letter, Mae."

Mae lets a few more sobs loose, her voice distorting from rising tears. "Not all of it was right, though. I was going through withdrawal and mourning. There was a lot of misplaced anger and blame in that letter. _She died thinking I hated her, Cullen. _"__

As much as he wants to argue to ease her suffering, he knows the frustration of people invalidating your self-hatred and grief. He won't do that to her, knows trying will only make her hurt all the worse, so he simply kisses her forehead and rocks her through her sobs.

"I'm so sorry, my love. Know always that I see your actions and your feelings, all of them, as justified. Anything you want, anything you need, I will find a way to grant it to you. If an Emperor of Thedas is what you need, then I'll march your armies until the title is mine."

She lets out a sharp exhale of air, the ghost of a laugh that triggers a small coughing fit. She catches her breath and leans her head against his chest again. "Hold me until I know what to feel," she rasps.

"Until the end of my days, love. You have my vow." Cullen raises his hand to pull her chin up, urging her to meet his eyes. "Perhaps I can persuade you to allow me the honor inside, where you're not in danger of frostbite. Again." He quirks an eyebrow at the last word, his mouth lifting right at his scar in that way he knows makes her stomach flip, much to her embarrassment and his delight.

She gives him a half smile of her own in return, another ghost of a laugh leaving her nose. She moves to untangle herself from his lap and her hand bumps into the still unopened bottle of whiskey at her side. The sound it makes as it tilts back and forth until it settles is unordinarily deafening, though Cullen knows that's all to do with the emotional connection it carries rather than any real volume.

_I hear the Ostwick Vicount's dear wife found a bottle at 15 and never put it back down. **Such** a shame, really, if the Lady Inquisitor's beauty is anything to go by. You know what drink drains of a woman's beauty. _

Even Leliana and Josie, with all their mastery of the Game, were unable to stop that particular whisper from spreading at the Winter Palace. That drink had finally claimed Dawn Trevelyan's life was not unbelievable in the slightest. Cullen just wished, with every part of his being, that it hadn't happened before Mae had gotten her due closure.

With a visible tremble, Mae wraps her hand around the neck of the bottle, bringing it closer to her eyes. Cullen waits on baited breath, refusing to make any decisions for her, she's had enough choice stripped from her over her lifetime, and watches her read the label over and over.

After the longest stretch of silence Cullen has experienced in quite some time, she lowers it to her side and takes a deep breath. "For moments of celebration, happiness, and relaxation. Never again as a poisonous bandage," she vows quietly to herself.

Expectations of others be damned, Cullen has never been prouder of anyone than he is of her as he guides her inside for a hot bath and a full nights rest.


End file.
